Hi I am thinking about setting up a second node for processes and one mostly just for nas. So i am wondering is there a if i have 2 ethernet ports on both machine can i connect them directly to eachother for faster storage access? If so how can i do it? I have one 1gig and one 2.5 ethernet ports on both which one should i use for data traffic. Thank you

Hi all,

I recently got a used Dell OEMR XL R240 (PowerEdge R240) to use as a pfSense router/firewall box.
It has a strange issue where the iDRAC will randomly reset/reboot itself. It retains settings, it just reboots and ramps the fans back up to 100% for a sec until it starts back up. This is just the iDRAC, the OS/pfSense doesn't seem to be affected at all by it, its staying up and no logs are generated when it happens.

I've updated the iDRAC firmware to 7.00.00.174 and the BIOS to 2.17.3. iDRAC is connected to network via the dedicated iDRAC NIC to a VLAN with just this device on it right now.
The main system log in iDRAC doesn't show anything when this happens either.
The Lifecycle log will show these events though:

https://preview.redd.it/9o7epp7la55e1.png?width=1250&format=png&auto=webp&s=9678e33a922c08c66e5a2f343599680abe7f7a65

These are all right after it comes back up it seems. Nothing seems to log before it reboots.

I've found some articles on the issue but they seem to be from much older firmware versions and claim to be fixed now. Anyone ever run into this or something similar? Anything specific I can try to troubleshoot to narrow down the issue or what's causing it?
Any help/direction would be much appreciated :)

Actually I hate them but why they are used what is the purpose of Chromebook

So, maybe like you, I have a Mega, DropBox, and other storage outlets. Is there a self hosted package that allows me to combine all of them into one neat package?

Hey ppl, first of all any help would be much appreciated, im mounting an homelab here, got this old tyan server, and willing to use it as my ssd nas with truenas, the problem is, it works with 2 hynix ssds that came with it (they are 3.2 sata standart), but the new ones i buyed wont! its driving me crazy allready.

The 2 drives that come with it -> https://smarthdd.com/database/SK-hynix-SC401-SATA-256GB/90000121/

The ones i buyed -> https://smarthdd.com/database/SanDisk-SSD-PLUS-2000GB/UP4504RL/

The doc about the mobo is here -> https://www.mitaccomputing.com/Tyan/Motherboards_S5530_S5530WGM5NR-LE-2T_EN~Spec (the version i have is the non LE, that wont have the internal IPMI attached on the board).

The raid board is on IT mode and if connecting the new ssd directly to the sata port on the lsi controller and on the sata power of the psu, it works... let me show some images on what i searched, found and tested.

This is the backplane schematic, i have changed the jumpers on SATA/SAS, tryed everything... :(

used the kapton tape, wont worked :'(

The controller is updated to last version, thus i can use the disks directly on the controller board.

In this image im using the sandisk plus (the new 2tb drive) directly on the LSI controller board, and it works like a charm...

If I were to put a homelab into a small shed, and the shed has small vents to let in and out air. Would you put small fans on the vents like pc fans? And would you set up exhaust or intake?

Been using tteck 🙏scripts creating lxcs to run services and seems like a breeze. Just recently deployed Docker/Portainer in a VM. Is it a good practice to create another Docker/Portainer instance to further segregate your services OR let say you have another instance for testing?

And what's preferable setup?

I've also checked k8s and as per most of the ones I read, if you are single and no kids, it's good to learn. So I'm definitely gonna pass on this 😅

I currently have the following setup in my home office:

- Laptop 1 connected to Plugable USB C dock. I keep the laptop closed
- 3 monitors connected to USB hub via HDMI x 2 and DisplayPort
- 2 monitors are side by side and monitor 3 sits above them
- Logitech K850 keyboard and mouse that you can connect to multiple devices though I've never used that function before, receiver is connected to my dock
- USB web cam and USB microphone connected to dock
- Speakers connected to laptop via Bluetooth

I now have to work on a second laptop and switch between both throughout the day, be on a Teams call on laptop 1, then be able to see Teams messages or emails come in on laptop 2 and vice versa. Currently I'm having to manually switch the dock USB c cable between laptops but also having to mess around opening the laptop etc as for laptop 1 I use it around the house and still want it to sleep when the lid is closed and not on power.

Ideally I want to be able to work on laptop 1 on monitors 1 and 2 and be able to see laptop 2 on screen 3, changing my mouse input to laptop 2 to be able to type out a quick email reply then switch back to primarily working on laptop 1 on screens 1 and 2. Then be able to do a full flip and get laptop 2 on screens 1 and 2 with laptop 1 on screen 3. Hopefully that makes sense.

I assume I need a KVM but my question is what type and is it even possible to do this? Also small potatoes here but for my bluetooth speakers, is there any way of sharing these across both laptops without running an audio cable to the dock? I'd like to be able to pick up notification sounds from both laptops but don't want 2 sets of speakers.

Edit: forgot to add that I'm unable to install anything on laptop 2

I ran fiber optic 4k hdmi to all monitors and tv in my house, as well as a usb c thunderbolt cable for plugins

I have bluetooth usb c plugin video game controllers, keyboard and mouse for each monitor/screen, and right now everything is kind of awkwardly on an extended display (the one where you drag mouse through side)

Does windows let me sign in to each monitor individually? That would be best? Or maybe I have to do the virtual machines somehow? I can keep the pc always on

Seeking Hardware recommendations...

Description: Have a workshed approx 50meters open line of site from our standard Omidirectional home internet wifi "router". Provided by ISP. Unable to alter that part end the setup in any way, nor add to it.

In the shed, we currently have a standard DLink 802.11ax router, running in bridge mode to the main internet router. It gets about 130mbps, works ok.

Looking to upgrade this to a PoE device.

Questions:

• Would installing a directional access point at the shed achieve better data rates - given that it will still be talking to the standard home wifi router at the other end? i.e if you have an omnidirectional antenna at one end, is there any reaal advantage to installing a directional antenna at the other? i.e the strength of the "transmitting" device is not made stronger in any way...but would the directional "receive" antenna make a noticeable difference?
• Can anyone recommend a PoE standalone access point/router for this job? Guess it could be omnidirectional or directional, depending on the answer to the question above....

Limitations:

• Device must function completely standalone, for simplicity - i.e no central coordinator or software or anything like that. Need it to be simple.
• Budget: ideally under $200 USD

thankyou!

Hey everyone!

I only have a few PCIe lanes to share and many slow drives so I wanted to find a way to only have one HBA control 40+ hard drives. Everywhere I look I find 16 port miniSas HBAs and no way to split these ports up among a host of drives.

So I recently purchased a server chassis that did not come with motherboard standoffs. The mounting holes for the standoffs are m5, which is too large of a screw to pass through the mobo mounting holes. I'm having trouble sourcing standoffs that have an m5 male thread and a standard (or small enough) female thread to fit the mobo. Anyone have any ideas?

I have multiple remote servers, 2 of which do not allow cross domain traffic short of email. i use a kvm to move between hosts as they are completely isolated. I am looking for a hardware solution to copy/paste - ideally a specialty keyboard.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

I thought about using mousejack/keyboard jack with a nrf24l radio on my insecure logitec wireless keyboard to inject keystrokes copied from other host, but that seems crude.

Theres got to be a better solution. No - i cannot use RDS, or putty copy/pasta because of secure cross domain stuff.

https://github.com/BastilleResearch/mousejack/blob/master/doc/pdf/MouseJack-whitepaper-v1.1.pdf

I'm delving further into the world of home labbing and I'm trying to get my Proxmox server to work with my Ubiquiti USW Pro Max 16 PoE at 10 Gb via fiber SFP modules.

Currently I can only get them to communicate at 1 Gb. Before I get into the troubleshooting, here are the devices I'm trying to use.

Proxmox 8.3.0 Server (Debian)

NIC: 25GbE NIC Card for Mellanox MCX4121A-ACAT, PCIe 3.0 x8 25Gb Ethernet NIC with Mellanox ConnectX-4 Lx Chipset, Dual SFP28 Network Card Support RDMA

SFP Module: Fibermall 25G SFP28 SR for Mellanox MMA2P00-AS 25GBASE-SR SFP28 850nm 100m DOM LC MMF Optical Transceiver Module

Optical cable

8M OM4 LC to LC Fiber Patch Cable

Switch

Model: Ubiquiti USW Pro Max 16 PoE

SFP Module: Fibermall 25G SFP28 SR for Ubiquiti UACC-OM-SFP28-SR 25GBASE-SR SFP28 850nm 100m DOM LC MMF Optical Transceiver Module

Troubleshooting and info

I am able to get them to communicate at 1 Gb when I set them to auto negotiate on both sides. Even setting the server to 1 Gb and the switch to auto negotiate works.

Switch auto negotiate, server interface set via ethtool:

ethtool -s <interface> autoneg on

When I do this they auto negotiate to 1 Gb. Not ideal. From what I understand, people recommend manually setting the speeds on both sides. When I set the Unifi switch to manual 10 Gbps FTX and the server interface to 10 Gb, it doesn't work:

ethtool -s <interface> autoneg off speed 10000

On the server, it states Link down and the status light on the switch doesn't illuminate (or show on the web interface). If I keep the switch in Auto Negotiate and set the server interface speed to 1000, it immediately shows Link up and the switch port light illuminates. Basically anything at 1 Gb works.

The only thing I can think is that this 25 Gb module won't work properly at 10 Gb? I researched it previously and it stated it down convert (I'm trying to future proof for a 25 Gb switch down the road).

When I run ethtool <interface> on the server, it shows the following supported link modes (all full):

• 1000baseKX
• 10000baseKR
• 25000baseCR
• 25000baseKR
• 25000baseSR

Could the problem be these SFP modules don't work properly at the slower 10 Gb speed? I'm new to working with fiber but I would expect it to advertise 10000baseSR. Do I need to get some 10 Gb modules or a 25 Gb switch (yikes $$)? If so, what have people had success with? The ones I have appear to be flashed properly from Fibermall. Also, I've tried unplugging, and plugging all of the modules and cables back in. Any other troubleshooting tips or anything I'm missing?

I appreciate the help and read!

What options are there for a cooler upgrade ?

Is it possible to just add a fan or what alternates are there?

What cpu and what what cooler to use?

Or just stick with the Xeon E3-1265L V2 and not worry the extra hassle

I don’t “need” anything more. Just want to for tinkering

Proxmox is obviously best for virtualization while the others are best for NAS, but generally speaking which do you prefer and why? What's the ideal solution for each use case?

I've researched a moderate amount, but there doesn't seem to be any definitive discussion of this out there. Let's do all future newcomers a favor and debate it in the comments.

I found one for about 90 bucks, it his worth it to start my home lab or are these tiny Pcs not recommended I’d like to try a lot of things virtualization, running proxmox and a whole bunch of stuff.

Hey gang,

I recently moved my Pihole to Mikrotik RB5009's container. Now I have unused one on my homelab.

Before I get rid of it, should I keep it as a spare one and play around with a workarounds to make it a fallback?

I'm trying to figure out pros and cons of having two Piholes.

Hello,

I'm a beginner trying to set up Docker in my Debian VM and I am not sure whether I should create one dedicated user for running all of my Docker containers or one user per container. What's the best practice? I also have a couple of related questions:

1. Are there any best practices regarding how I should set up the user(s) outside of Docker? Should I e.g. somehow limit them to have access nowhere besides the folder(s) that they need, set what shell they can use etc.?

2. How should I actually set what user the container is going to use? I know Docker offers a "user" service top-level element but I have also seen people set PUID/PGID variables in their docker compose files. Should I set both? Or is there any other way?

Thank you!

Looking for suggestions for mini pcs. My needs are simple:

• three drives, 2.5" is fine, m.2 also but three
• gbit ethernet rj45, a second one would be nice
• at least 6th gen intel/2nd gen AMD
• under 200€, better under 150 but out of curiosity please suggest me some others

I found the HP elitedesk 800 G4 35w but was wondering, if you have any other suggestions.

Thanks

I need fast memory to keep up with my CPUs. If I use 8 memory sticks, for example, 6400 MT/s memory, will the speed be reduced to 3200 MT/s to maintain stability, or is that not how it works with servers compared to normal PCs?

I am planning to get a 1-socket AMD EPYC 7763 with an H12DSi-N6 motherboard. What do you think—will the memory speed be reduced? going to buy the second cpu socket in the future.

Listed at $99

Lenovo ThinkCentre M920q

Processor: Intel Core i5-9600T (9th Gen, 6 cores, up to 3.9 GHz).

Memory: 8 GB DDR4 RAM

Storage: 128 GB SSD

My main concern is I probably will need to upgrade memory and storage anyways.

Update: based on all the encouragement from you guys, I grabbed 2 of them from the seller for $180.

So, I have spent 2 days consistently troubleshooting why I awasnt able to access my docker vm from my LAN. Just to give you an overview of my networks:

LAN: 192.168.10.0/24

Server network: 10.17.1.0/24

I tried several different dashboard solutions, one of them was homarr. I installed it on my docker vm and started tinkering with it. After some time I turned my PC off and went to bed. The next day I noticed I couldnt access my homepage instance (another dashboard solution, also running on the same docker vm).

I did installed crowdsec the night before so I suspected maybe I got blacklistet when I accessed docker via ssh or something. I stopped crowdsec still no luck. I couldnt ping my docker vm, Via tracert I just got to the Gateway of my PC. I tried pinging my docker from my pc and the other way around, nothing. I checked my firewall (sophos) and the logs and there were no logs!

I gave both clients a new ip, no.

I checked if maybe a fw rule got deleted or something , no. I restartet both clients, the firewall, the switches everything.

I couldnt even ping either the docker from any other client on my LAN nor any client on my LAN from my docker vm. EVERTHING else on both networks could be reached!

Then I thought, ok lets revert all changes I made that night. So in addition to uninstalling crowdsec I deleted the homarr container. Still nothing.

I dont know how or why but I then checked the docker networks (via portainer) and there it was! The culprit: After installing homarr as a container it alsow created a 192.168.10.0/20 network!

That was the reason the traffic couldnt reach either the docker vm nor from the docker to my LAN.

So long story short, I am so excited it is working again!

Thanks for your attention ^^

Same as the title. Thanks! Forgot to mention EPYC.

I have a MikroTik CRS328 switch with SFP+ ports and need a 10GbE RJ45 transceiver. While there are many options available, I have heard that some brands have compatibility issues. Can anyone recommend a reliable SFP+ transceiver that works with my MikroTik switch? Ideally one that is fully vendor agnostic and works with any switch. Also, at a reasonable price, would be nice. Thanks.

Hey, I have a 24-port keystone patch panel with about half the ports unused. Due to cable routing constraints, using these remaining ports isn't practical. I'm looking for plastic placeholders or blanks to cover the empty keystone slots, as I'd prefer not to have visible holes in the panel. Any suggestions?

Hi friends, I'm new to the subject, and I don't understand anything..so I'm interested in learning (I basically want to open from my small Netflix at home, buy 4x22 terabytes, and for synchronizing files from the cell phone for the whole family). I wanted to know if you could direct me to very simple guides to understand how to build a NAS (from the parts that fit) up to software like TrueNas and unraid Many thanks to all the helpers!

Assuming some of y'all are using a KVM switch in your setup. I'm also wondering if any of you have a Samsung Odyssey G9 49" 240hz monitor hooked up to it. I just got the monitor and am trying to get a 3 or 4 monitor / 2 pc KVM switch to work with it. I haven't hooked it up yet to my existing KVM switch as I'm looking to do some home office cleanup and eliminate the need for at least one of my docking stations. I'm told by TeSmart (my current KVM switch) that they don't have one compatible with 240hz yet (@ 5120x1440). Reading up on it, Level1Techs may have 1 but that seems pricey.

Hi all,

I want to build a homelab-server with Proxmox and Home-Assistant. The hardware I have chosen to buy should be a Lenovo M910q or M920q. In the beginnig, the default onboard-NIC should be enough. But I want to have the option to add a second NIC when needed.
Do both platforms have the m.2 slot for accessories (e.g. wifi) by default or do I need to buy a PC with wifi (to throw it away......) to make sure the interface is available ?

Greetings Tobi